Just a little White Lie

Jane's eyelids drooped as she tried to focus on the lines in the book. The lamp beside her bed cast an intimate glow on the white pages but she was feeling the pinch of 2am and her eye lids drooped again. She sighed. Maybe now she could get to sleep finally. She closed the book with a snap and glanced around the dimly lit room. The normal shadows sat in their spaces and she sighed again dropping the book to the floor and turning on her side to reach the bed lamp switch.

"Only good dreams" she mumbled to herself as she slipped the switch and the room fell into darkness. Eyes closed, she felt like she was staring into the void behind her eyes. "Sleep!" she willed her mind with the last dregs of the romance story on her thoughts.

Unbeknownst to the drowsy Jane, a shadow separated from the wall and slipped closer to the bed, sprinkling light like wriggling maggots over her head and face. They landed softly and gently on her skin, whisper quiet, seeping through and into her mind. The red eyes of the shadow gleamed brilliantly for a moment and it leaned closer whispering into Jane's ear.

"Good dreams are a little white lie to keep you safe"

Jane's face crinkled into a fleeting frown at the lightly whispered words but sleep had already sucked her down into its morphic depths.

She woke with a start and switched on the light. She waited to her eyes had adjusted and looked at the digital clock. 2.05am. Had she only been sleeping, if you could call it that for 5 minutes. What a joke and what had woken her up? Her skin felt clammy and she felt uncomfortable in her own skin.

Jane breathed deeply for long moments until she felt better and wiped a hand across her face. She felt unclean, like something revolting had touched her for a moment and left a residual echo on her skin. She reach for the book on the floor and pulled it onto her bed clothes on her chest. She may as well read until sleep snuck in again. She opened the book at the folded page. "All good dreams are a white lie to keep you safe" she read. She frowned. That didn't even make sense and she didn't recall reading that bit. She scanned back up the page a bit, "All good dreams are a white lie to keep you safe"

The words were everywhere, like the story had just been replaced with that stupid sentence. She closed the book and looked at the title again. "A Little White Lie" was emblazoned across the front of the book. What hell, that wasn't the book she was reading.

She had been reading "Tiffany's Choice" before bed to help her fall asleep. She looked at the book in distaste, for the cover of it seemed to be changing, morphing into a scaly skin like texture. She wanted to drop the book but found she couldn't as little vine like tendrils unwound themselves from the book cover and slid lovingly around her wrists tightening as they wound around her wrists and forearms, digging in deeply. It was all happening so fast, the words on the book started to bleed into each other and melt into a teeth filled maw and a rancid rotting smell filled her dilated nostrils. She drew in a breath to scream and the vines surged up her arms and laced into her mouth holding it open in a silence scream. The vines slithered the vile book with the sharp toothed open maw, up her arms and close to her prised open mouth.

Her breath came in short gargled half screams as fear clogged her brain and the stretching of her mouth pulled hot tears from her eyes. The book was now mouth to mouth with her, mere centimetres away and the stench was almost unbearable. She could feel moist heat from the horrific lips of the book and hot rancid breath invading her throat. She craned her eyes downwards in absolute horror as a long lizard like black tongue slipped from book's gaping maw and licked the inside of her mouth, along her tongue, around her teeth and she gagged in the back of throat. Her eyes rolled up in her head and she fainted.

Jane sat up in bed with a muffled scream, her eyes bulging in their sockets, her white nightdress soaked with sweat and her hands clawing at her mouth and throat. In the dim moon light one of the shadows moved and a thin chuckle was missed due to the sound of Jane's pounding heart in her ears. Jane snatched at the light cord and switched on the light throwing her pristine bedroom in sharp detail. Jesus, it had just been a nightmare after all!

She glanced at the book on the floor with distaste. The words "A Little White lie" were fading from the cover and the brilliant pink shades of Tiffany's Choice were reappearing. She rubbed her eyes to rid them of the thoughts that had followed her out of the nightmare, and it was a nightmare she told herself. She shuddered and wrapped her arms around herself, still in the horror of the dream. There was no way she was going back to sleep tonight, she could still feel the disgusting sensation of the tongue in her mouth. Her stomach rolled alarmingly in response and she jumped out of bed and fled to the toilet to throw up.

The dark shadow detached itself from the side of the curtain and walked to the fallen book reaching out a hand to it. The little maggots of light retracted backwards from the book into the dark hand and it closed its fist around them. "My work is done" it whispered, the whole shadow just dissolved into nothing.